Slavery and Childhood inHumanitarian Discourses

About

My research in this area explores the ways in which Critical Applied History (CAH) might offer unique insights that would have much utility in the fight against contemporary slavery in the Global South.

In April 2016, I was invited to present my early findings at the international colloquium La mémoire de l’esclavage dans tous ses états. Perspectives internationales comparéeswhich was collaboratively organized by the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris) and the University of Ottawa. My presentation was entitled "Slavery and Memory in Present Day Humanitarian Discourses" and is currently being revised for publication.

I also have a particular interest in the problem of contemporary child slavery and the ways in which historical methodologies might serve to reorient current discourses in an effort to better advance the fight against this present-day humanitarian challenge. I address these issues in my article "Notions of African Childhood in Abolitionist Discourses: Colonial and Post-Colonial Humanitarianism in the Fight Against Child Slavery" in the edited collection Child Slavery Before & After Emancipation, (Cambridge University Press, 2017). I presented an earlier version of this paper at the annual conference of the Social Science History Association in 2014. I was also invited to present my ongoing ideas at the colloquium When Is a Child A Slave? Children's Labor and Children's Rights at the University of Connecticut in 2013.